By Casey Schmidt Ahl
Casey shares her successes and failures from her garden this year.
One of the best parts of my job is trying out plants in my garden. Not only do I get to enjoy the beauty of a garden teeming with blooms, but I learn so much more through experience than I ever could through reading the tags. That includes falling in love with certain varieties that exceed my wildest expectations–and it includes failures in the garden, often due to my own mistakes.
I once read that the difference between a good gardener and a bad gardener is that the good gardener has killed many more plants. The saying is getting at the fact that good gardeners fail often, but persevere and learn from their mistakes. Bad gardeners are just the ones who give up. I wanted to share my successes and failures from this year so you know which plants I loved and don’t have to repeat my mistakes!
First up, the winners!
These are plants that outperformed my expectations and have done great in my garden this year.
‘Suncredible Saturn’ Sunflower
I’ve been feeling the sunflower itch for the past few years and I finally got what I wanted with the ‘Suncredible Saturn’ Sunflower. (Only a Proven Winners variety would have such a mouthful of a name). The squirrels in my neighborhood make me wary of planting seeds, but seeing the striking petite sunflower heads with ombre petals, I knew I had to give these bushy sunflowers a try. I am so glad that I did. These plants have been giving me non-stop blooms since I planted them. I’ve been sure to snip back old blooms and fertilize and have been rewarded with the sheer joyfulness unique to sunflowers. I highly recommend this variety and will likely get them again next year.
Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis)
This year we ripped out about 100 square feet of our front lawn to add in a pollinator garden, prioritizing native and pollinator-favorite plants. I’ve also made a point to include some hummingbird favorites to feed our local female. Alongside some annual salvia, I decided to try the straight-species cardinal flower. The cultivated variety “Chocolate Truffle” lives along the side of my house. While that variety flowered, it also meandered instead of staying upright. I was expecting the same, maybe even worse from the green-leafed one I selected.
I was so pleasantly surprised. The cardinal flower in my pollinator garden produced the bright red flowers I was expecting, but in an even greater number than I could have dreamed of. Best of all, it stayed strong and upright. It looks like a strange, upside-down chandelier of blooms and I love it so much. This perennial is growing in full sun in my garden, but will also grow in part-shade conditions.
Dreamland Zinnia Series
I won’t rave this year about my Supertunias since I technically first tried them last year, but I planted several different varieties with a backdrop of Dreamland zinnias. Zinnias come in a wide variety of colors, bloom sizes, and heights. At Colonial, we are growing many different varieties of cutting garden zinnias–tall varieties for arrangements. Some colors are so bright, they don’t look real. That’s how I felt about the red Dreamland zinnias, a compact variety with huge scarlet blooms.
After a few weeks in the ground, I was worried that the zinnias were too top heavy for the stems. Perhaps they were initially, but the plant shifted to the side and started to produce blooms that pushed upright. The overall effect was a spherical plant with huge blooms up top. I’ve deadheaded a few of the old blooms, but for the most part, these zinnias have just kept pushing out new flowers unaided. They’re a stunning addition to my garden and I’ll be reaching for them again next year to try another color.
Losers!
Hey, all of these can be great plants, but they failed for various reasons in my garden. Don’t take this as a “don’t plant this plant” section. Take it as a “don’t do what I did” section.
Cosmos
I planted cosmos last year with great success. I became enamored with the delicate foliage and whimsical blooms waving gently in the wind. So this year I grabbed a couple different varieties from the benches and added them to the edges of my pollinators garden that I reserved for annuals. Then I waited for the beauty.
The cosmos grew. And grew. And GREW. Instead of growing thin, upright stems, my cosmos grew horizontally with their stems reaching almost an inch in diameter. They wandered onto the sidewalk and nearly squished my garden phlox. Worst of all, these monsters put out ONE BLOOM. I was rewarded with one single white flower.
I did a little research and it turns out that this issue is probably my fault. Cosmos thrive in poor soil. I both amended my soil with BumperCrop and planted the cosmos near my Supertunias, which I fertilize regularly. The excess nitrogen caused the cosmos to dedicate massive growth towards their foliage and not enough to blooming. It’s a good lesson in paying attention to the plants’ needs.
Astilbe ‘Visions in Red’
I guess wispy, whimsical blooms are my weak spot, because in addition to the cosmos, I tried to add astilbe to the garden this year. Astilbe are shade perennials that do well in average to dry shady conditions. While many shade-blooming plants show color in the spring, astilbes show off in June. I was excited to add a pink variety, ‘Visions in Red’ to my garden for a little color by my fence.
I was very disappointed. My astilbe flowered, but the flowers were stumpier than what I expected. The ‘Visions in Red’ variety is certainly less loose and airy than the white varieties, but these were downright stubby. As summer progressed, the plant fared even worse. The leaves turned brown. The plant is surviving, but it’s ugly.
It turns out that an area that I thought was shady, really wasn’t. The hosta that the astilbe lives next to has burns on its leaves. The shade-loving plants nearby are actually shaded, not by the house, but by the Joe-Pye weed and viburnum they live next to. The shade cast by these plants doesn’t reach the hosta and astilbe. While both plants will survive and might look good in the shorter days of spring, the summer really wrecks them. I might leave it until next year in case it’s just a transplant shock, but I think it’ll have to move in the long-run.
Bacopa
I tried my hand at custom containers this year, focusing on a monochrome purple palette with a wide variety of purple, white, and silver plants across two planters. The first planter featured angelonia as the thriller, million bells as the filler/spiller, and a Headliner Crystal Sky and purple bacopa as the spillers. The bacopa plant itself is relatively diminutive compared to many of the other varieties in the planters, but the tiny purple blooms are attractive and add a different texture.
The problem is, the bacopa stopped flowering within just a few weeks, leaving the side of the planter with a small green clump of unremarkable leaves. I fertilized regularly, but the plant just remained in stasis. I ended up adding dichondra to give some sort of impact spilling over the side. With more fertilization the bacopa did come back into flower, but only briefly and not for the impact that I wanted.
It turns out, bacopa fades in the heat and this summer was terribly hot. It caused the bacopa blooms to go dormant while the other heat-loving annuals like angelonia thrived. Instead of the bacopa, I added scaveola to the partner planter and was pleasantly surprised. Scaveola, or fan flower, thrived in the heat and filled out really nicely compared to underwhelming performance of the bacopa.
Yet to Be Determined
It’s late July as I write this article. These are plants that haven’t met my expectations yet, but still have some time to impress me.
Pineapple Sage
An herb that attracts hummingbirds? Win-win. Pineapple sage has fantastic smelling leaves that add a tropical zing to any dish you add it to. The tag also lists it as becoming four feet tall and wide with red flowers. Mine is maybe 8 inches tall with no flowers. Maybe it’ll have a late summer or fall surge? Maybe it will overwinter and return stronger next year like my Black and Bloom salvia? Only time will tell.
Heart of the Jungle Elephant Ear
My husband loves a giant tropical plant so I got Heart of the Jungle to grow on our front porch. It promised to be 5 feet tall. So far, it’s probably about 3.5 feet tall and can only sustain 3 leaves at a time, regularly producing large, velvety leaves to replace the old ones. However, because there are only three leaves at a time, if one looks ratty, the whole plant looks rough. It’s been producing some pups at the base, but they have stayed quite small and haven’t made the plant look any fuller. This plant was plagued by aphids early in the season, so it’s not all its fault. Maybe the pups will catch up and we will get the larger-than-life elephant ear we were promised.
Next time you visit the garden center, I hope you’ll share with me your successes and failures in the garden. When we all learn from each other, we can help avoid common mistakes.
Colonial Gardens is an independent garden center located in Phoenixville in Chester County, Pennsylvania since 1967. We carry one of the widest selection of annuals, perennials, trees and shrubs, and food gardening crops in Southeastern Pennsylvania. We offer professional landscaping services and a full-service florist. Visit our greenhouse for unique houseplants and our gift shop for gifts and garden accessories. In the fall and winter, join us for our family-friendly seasonal events and Christmas shop.